Twitter Lifeline Surfaces Useful Information During Emergencies, Live in Japan

The tool is designed to make it easier for people to find info in emergencies

Twitter Lifeline was designed for emergencies

Twitter's been getting a lot of attention lately, not necessarily for the best of reasons, but it is working on improving that. It's now launched a tool to make it easier to get help in case of emergencies, it's called Twitter Lifeline and it's only available in Japan.

"It’s a new feature for Japanese users that helps people there find critical information when they need it most: during moments of crisis like natural disasters, or when other communications services are difficult to reach," Twitter explained.

Here's how it works: in the case of an emergency, all that users have to do is search for their postal code. This will uncover the Twitter accounts of the local authorities in the city or region and also reveal the accounts of utilities like gas, water or electricity.

The tool was developed in Japan, it may be made available in other places in time. In Japan, it is now part of the Prime Minister's Lifeline Commission which handles communications in case of emergencies.